


rearview

by nfwmb (earthshaker)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Formula One, Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, Reverse Chronology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:42:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28754580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earthshaker/pseuds/nfwmb
Summary: “Will you miss Seokmin?” The interviewer asks.The honest answer? Yes. The answer the media wants to devour? No. Mingyu’s answer? “It’s too early to tell, but maybe, yeah. I’ll enjoy waving at him when I lap him next season.”
Relationships: Kim Mingyu/Lee Seokmin | DK
Comments: 16
Kudos: 39
Collections: Seventeen Holidays





	rearview

**Author's Note:**

> [written for this prompt on svthols](https://17hols.dreamwidth.org/4307.html?thread=141267#cmt141267) also known as dia takes the maxiel prompt. i have this weird pet peeve about handwaving sports settings on an international stage to be all one ethnicity OR integrating the actual people in the sports into fic (mostly because these men CAN find fanfiction of themselves), so i made up some characters. they're immediately recognizable references to the 2020 f1 season drivers. this fic doesn't require any knowledge of f1 as it's more... character study-esque? unbeta'd & written in one sitting, leave a comment if you enjoyed it!

Melvin’s voice rings in Mingyu’s head, _bringing home the grand slam on the last race, champ_ and Mingyu is thrumming at the same frequency as the RB16 engine, _glowing_ like the sun. After his early retirement at Sakhir, finishing off the season like this feels like the first sip of cool water after 61 laps in Singapore, top step in Monaco, stealing pole from Ferrari’s Jeonghan Yoon in Imola. It's Mingyu's first—pole position, leading the pack, clocking the fastest lap—dreamlike, wispy, unheard of for someone as young as Mingyu is. It feels _monumental_. 

“Sorry about losing that grand slam, mate,” Dean’s hand claps down on his shoulder. “Phenomenal stuff though.” 

Mingyu smiles blankly at Dean—Mingyu has no idea what he’s referring to, Melvin just confirmed it moments ago—but Dean is well-meaning most of the time and remains pleasant to Mingyu off track despite the fact that they’re _technically_ rivals, so maybe Dean is just mixed up. Mingyu nods and Dean squeezes his shoulder once before shouldering off to give his post-race interview. 

It is trained instinct to look out for Seokmin at this point of Mingyu’s career and he picks him out purely because Seokmin’s helmet is _obnoxious_ —vomit varnished with glitter—but it's Seokmin’s grin that makes Mingyu’s heart stutter, the kind of nasty, car flip midair stutter. Two years apart, competing in entirely different fields of the circuit, and Mingyu is still a walking, talking encyclopedia on reading Seokmin Lee and his distinct facets. There is the Seokmin who remains the darling and social butterfly of Formula 1, the Seokmin dropping to his knees for children waving Renault—or anything with his name on it, really, including Red Bull—paraphernalia, the Seokmin agitated with nerves, smile strained at the corners during debriefs when he _knows_ he didn’t do his best. _This_ expression is one Mingyu is intimately familiar with because _this_ smile—wide, teeth bared, the wild gleam in Seokmin’s eyes—is one reserved for Mingyu especially. Seokmin meets Mingyu’s eyes across parc ferme and flips him the bird, toweling at his hair as talks animatedly with Jeonghan and Mingyu _knows_. 

The Seokmin off track is not the Seokmin _on_ track. Seokmin drives with precision, with all the ferocity of a feral dog that's absent the moment he climbs out of his cockpit. Seokmin drives with ambition, with all the hunger of someone who has been denied a title for too long and too close to turning 30. Seokmin drives with vengeance, with all the desire of someone who wants to prove a point to Mingyu, especially.

Mingyu makes his way to where the team is crowded against the paddock and Melvin is the first person he sees. “Mingyu, we’re sorry—” 

“It was Seokmin, wasn’t it?” Mingyu interrupts. 

“Yeah. He’s still wicked, isn’t he?” It borders on wistful and Mingyu wants to feel bitter, but he can’t find it in himself. 

“This makes him fourth in the championship.” 

An engineer hums in assent. Translation: Seokmin Lee is in a car that is _supposedly_ lesser than Mingyu’s, and finished 14 points behind Mingyu in the championship. Translation: Seokmin Lee is in the car of a team that poached him from Red Bull, miraculously came second in Monaco, a race Red Bull usually dominates, and finished 14 points behind Mingyu in the championship. Translation: Seokmin Lee may not be in bed next to Mingyu—or even in the bed across Mingyu's—anymore, but they’re still locked in their own race against each other, an endless cycle.

It takes Seokmin stealing what _should_ be Mingyu’s to understand love. It takes Mingyu keeping an eye on the rearview mirror at all times for an acknowledgment to be reflected—a challenge to be answered, to understand love. It takes the addition of hate to understand the absence of love.

—

“Will you miss Seokmin?” The interviewer asks.

The honest answer? Yes. The answer the media wants to devour? No. Mingyu’s answer? “It’s too early to tell, but maybe, yeah. I’ll enjoy waving at him when I lap him next season.”

Both the interviewer and Mingyu dissolve into polite laughter. _Everyone_ knows that Seokmin leaving Red Bull is a trade down, voluntarily kissing his chance at a title goodbye. Everyone also knows that _Mingyu_ is the reason Seokmin is gambling with his future in the first place, that Seokmin is the impression of a fading dream at 28-years-old, that Mingyu Kim is the greatest contender Red Bull has against Mercedes and Ferrari since Hermann retired. If they didn't know before, with half of Seokmin's season being ruined by early retirements, they know now, after Red Bull had made a call that shooed Mingyu into P3 with zero attempts to let Seokmin pass Mingyu in P4, in Seokmin's last race with Red Bull emblazoned across his shoulders. 

That is Mingyu’s first mistake: underestimating Seokmin. 

It’s the fourth race of the season—Azerbaijan, ironically, where everything went to shit—Mingyu registering the blur of black and yellow through the adrenaline of defending his position, an abrupt realization that he’s left a path wide open for Seokmin, a siren call Seokmin has never left unanswered. He veers in to defend but it’s too late: Seokmin has always been a master of the inside line, toeing between contact and track limits, forcing Mingyu to back off; it's almost mocking, like taking candy from a child. Seokmin slides into P3 effortlessly and Mingyu kisses the podium goodbye, too experienced to call that a rookie mistake. 

When Mingyu climbs out of the cockpit he hears the yelled question: _what is it like to take revenge on Mingyu, Seokmin?_ He hears the beginning of Seokmin’s laugh and powerwalks to the weigh-in station. Last year's crash plays on loop; Mingyu is hungry for victory on a good day, add Seokmin as competition and he becomes _voracious_. He didn't have to _race_ Seokmin, not when the call to move over had already come in, but he _wanted_ to. He wanted to goad Seokmin into taking the position from him and it worked all too well, knocking them both out of the race in a collision that comes down like a hammer to the glass of their fracturing relationship. 

Much later in the hotel, there’s a knock on his door. Seokmin stands in the hallway with a half-empty bottle of Moet and Chandon, most likely lukewarm, and Mingyu swings the door wider to let him in. Being good at sports is upholding rituals; for every double podium they've shared with Mingyu pressed close to Seokmin, there's a loss that finds Seokmin at Mingyu's room to offer the comfort of touch. His stomach rolls like he's taking every turn in Spa on top speed. 

“Forgot I was the enemy?” Seokmin teases, pouring a generous drink into a coffee mug and handing it to Mingyu. 

Mingyu leads them to the balcony quietly, curling up in the chair. Removed from the cameras, the crew, his father, Mingyu is reminded that he once loved Seokmin. _Still_ loves Seokmin; they were friends first, and the blurred lines between friends and lovers later and he can taste blood, biting down on all his wants when he's around Seokmin.

“No,” Mingyu snorts. “You’d have to be in my colors for that, and it’s more unlikely that I’d forget if you _were._ ” 

There’s a thinly veiled barb at Jaime; while Mingyu was defending P3, Jaime was struggling in P6. Mingyu knows what it’s like to go from Torro Rosso to Redbull, painfully familiar with the potent mix of newfound invulnerability and heavy expectation. He made that jump all too easily and now he expects it to be the same for everyone else, ignoring the part where Mingyu is referred to recklessly brilliant by half the journalists. There’s a title, out of his reach, with his name on it. There’s a size 11 sized racing boot his new partner needs to step into for him to get that title. 

“Jaime is trying, cut him some slack. I did that for you, didn’t I?” Seokmin’s smile is wistful, and he reaches over to curl a palm over the inside of Mingyu’s thigh.

The touch is familiar. The touch is foreign. 

Seokmin _did_ cut him slack, two years of it—gaining points for the team every time Mingyu took himself out in some stupid accident or another with every other midfield driver, patient in a way that comes from his 8 years of experience over Mingyu's—but even bedrock gives way to the tide. If it were Seokmin as his second, then Mingyu would have finished on the podium. They both would have and Seokmin would have emptied his bottle all over Mingyu, pulling Mingyu right back into his orbit just as Mingyu had pulled free. Seokmin would have grinned at him, proud, indulgent, a warm hand hot on the back of Mingyu’s neck, foreheads pressed together and Mingyu could rival the rivulets of champagne running down their skin with the way his blood would go carbonated, rising to the touch. 

(That is their ritual at every double podium. Has been since their first: foreheads pressed together, Seokmin’s hand on the back of Mingyu’s neck. Is that another thing left in the past now that they’re in different colours?)

— 

Seokmin is underwhelming as a person, or rather, he is exactly who he is known for being. He is _also_ underwhelming as a driver; Mingyu had nabbed P3 compared to Seokmin’s P5. It’s their first race briefing since Mingyu was moved to Red Bull, Mingyu antsy with the desire to climb into the car and show the team what he has, prove that he despite being young he is _fucking_ good at what he does, the best in fact but Seokmin gets under his skin by _existing_. 

There are no cameras, no reporters and Seokmin still laughs and smiles, asks after the crew and their families. Seokmin cracks jokes spontaneously and recites his race scenarios perfectly when asked. Seokmin exists and the crew comes alive, crowding around him like a plant to sunlight. For all Mingyu’s attempts to be likable and earnest, what he delivers is a polished facade compared to the effortless way Seokmin carries himself. 

Mingyu relaxes when he’s in his car. It doesn’t matter if he’s liked in the car, what matters is that he wins. Mingyu is _very_ good at winning. He is leading between them despite the fact that the team had pitted Seokmin during the safety car and left Mingyu out, pitting him later. They’re two-thirds into finishing and Mingyu is expecting the call to move over for Seokmin soon. He’s already decided that he won’t be giving in: if Seokmin wants P2, Seokmin can come and get P2 from Mingyu. Last he checked, Seokmin had climbed into P4; Mingyu has bigger things to worry about anyway, namely Dean Ruell ahead. 

Dean locks up and Mingyu floors the engine, coaxing every bit of power at his disposal to close the gap, flying down the straight when it happens, red-and-blue in his rearview mirror. Before Mingyu knows it, he’s trying to avoid contact between Seokmin on the inside line and him, cursing the whole time which quickly changes to stunned awe as Seokmin repeats the move again on Dean in turn 3 and takes the lead, defending his spot with grace for the remaining laps.

There was no call to move from the pit for Mingyu to move over. There was no warning, even. There was just their faith, and Mingyu is only beginning to _grasp_ what he’s up against. 

Mingyu is impetuous, hot-headed, stubborn in all the wrong ways but he is earnest about wanting to win. He is earnest about love, too and for someone whose anchor to the world is racing, there’s no one who has set him aflame like Seokmin just did. It’s instantaneous; one minute, Mingyu grounded in the knowledge he’s better than Seokmin and the next, a rear-end collision, sending him spinning, Mingyu in the dust. 

It’s a double podium, in the end, Mingyu on P3 and Seokmin on P1, Mingyu looking up at him. The perfect golden boy. They stand solemn for the anthem and then Seokmin is spraying him in the face with champagne, pressing their foreheads together with a strong grip on his neck with the biggest smile on his face. This close, Mingyu can see the beginnings of Seokmin's smile lines.

“That was a good first try but you’ve still got lots to learn,” Seokmin laughs. It’s not cruel. It’s a challenge.

“I’m going to beat you next time,” Mingyu says frankly. 

Seokmin blinks then barks out another laugh, head tipping back. Mingyu quickly averts his eyes from the bob of Seokmin’s Adam’s apple, the cut of Seokmin’s jaw; photography is something Mingyu saves for the off-season but god, does he want to preserve the moment. Seokmin’s smile is genial, until it is not. There is a fire in Seokmin’s eyes, in the set of his brow. 

“Keep an eye on your rearview, yeah?” 

  
  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [number one with a bullet](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29535216) by [deadwine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadwine/pseuds/deadwine)




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